30 October 2013

Connect For Health Colorado Still Broken

Marketplace officials have delayed the opening of the online subsidies application and calculator until Nov. 4 — meaning that until then customers can't finish the process without phoning customer service. . . . Susan Birch, a board member who oversees Medicaid as director of state Health Care Policy and Finance, said Medicaid is working internally and with federal officials to streamline the application and get instant decisions to 90 percent of cases. Currently, many applicants are required to fill out questions on assets that are not required for Medicaid decisions.

A month after being launched, Colorado's health care exchange is still broken. The instant response rates on applications for subsidies is more like 50% than 90% and if it isn't handled instantly, it takes many days to process (mine has been in limbo for eight days). The critical functions of the system like the online subsidies application won't work until Monday, not that the website well tell you that fact.

Honestly, if the website could at least tell you to come back later when it actually works, it would dramatically reduce frustration levels.

The basic plan of Obamacare is sound, and honestly, not all that terribly complicated. How the relatively straightforward task of setting up these websites with years of advanced warning is so FUBAR is honestly baffling. This really shouldn't have been that hard and certainly shouldn't have taken more than a month to bring to remotely functional level, although shutting down the government for more than two weeks at the same time certainly didn't help.